S! Jedders, I had another user with the same 10007 file transfer error. Did some checking and found there was a couple of files the mission called for that I did not have on my server in the appropriate place so that the clients could download them. All those that connected must have had them locally on their machines from previous missions. Sorry for the trouble, I'll double check that the files are in place on missions going forward. Thx for letting me know!

Greetings all and Salute! This Sunday's Vintage Mission will feature the Battle of Messines - June 1917.

Historical background:

In the face of active German counter-mining, 8,000 metres of tunnel were constructed under German lines. Occasionally the tunnellers would encounter German counterparts engaged in the same task: underground hand to hand fighting would ensure.

Heavy preliminary artillery bombardment of the German lines was begun on 21 May, involving 2,300 guns and 300 heavy mortars, ceasing at 02:50 on the morning of 7 June. The German troops, sensing imminent attack, rushed to their defensive positions, machine guns ready, meanwhile sending up flares to detect British movement towards the ridge.

Silence prevailed for the following twenty minutes until, at 03:10, the order was given across the line to detonate the mines, which totalled 600 tons of explosive. Of the 21 mines laid 19 were exploded. The invariable loss of surprise in the use of a preliminary bombardment was entirely offset by the effect of the mines, which blew the crest off the Messines-Wytschaete ridge. Audible in Dublin and by Lloyd George in his Downing Street study, the combined sound of the simultaneous mine explosions comprised the loudest man-made explosion until that point. The lighting up of the sky as the detonations ran across the ridge was likened to a 'pillar of fire'.

The effect of the mine explosions upon the German defenders was devastating. Some 10,000 men were killed during the explosion alone. In its wake nine divisions of infantry advanced under protection of a creeping artillery barrage, tanks and gas attacks from the new Livens projectors which were designed to throw gas canisters directly into the enemy trenches.

To make things interesting, the plane sets for this particular map are limited and are as follows:

This is due entirely to the efforts of J2_SteveF who single-handedly jumped in and configured Vaal's stats and parser setups on the server. All I did was watch in amazement :) In addition to that he also got the server posted to http://online.riseofflight.net so you can check the server from the web anytime.

The server has also been moved to New York and given a little more horsepower in hopes of improving the connection and lag issues the European players were experiencing Sunday before last.

We've got the Dawn to Dusk Nieuport map running now for any who want to test it out. More to follow on this Sunday's Vintage Mission. Big thanks to J2_SteveF for the hard work!

This Sunday's Vintage Mission will see us in the Lens / Arras sector - June 1918. This is roughly the same area of the map that we will be flying in the upcoming Jasta5 Bloody April VII campaign, so it will be a nice orientation map to get us used to the area of operations. VERY IMPORTANT - The photo recons on this map do not work like the ones we are used to. THERE IS NO CAMERA ICON upon spawning in or when you are over the photo target. Instead, you begin at either end of the marked photo target area and you will get a subtitle message directing you to fly to the other end. Once you reach the other end you will get another message to turn around and go back to the other end. Down and back is considered one full circuit and you must make 2 complete circuits. The subtitles will tell you when to head home. Also, YOU MUST LAND AT THE BASE FROM WHICH YOU TOOK OFF, it won't work if you land an any other base! All pilots on your side will get the same subtitle message as the photo recon pilot so everyone on your side will know your progress. This will make the recon a very challenging objective that will require some skill, coordination and luck to accomplish so work together! The arty spot works just as the instructions state. 2000m, stay inside the marked area on the map for 5-6 min, the subtitles will inform you of your progress. If you fly outside the zone, the timer picks up where you left off so you can leave the area and return later.

VM - Lens - June 1918

Objectives - Each side has several tasks to complete. One Artillery Spotting mission, one reconaissance mission and two targets to destroy by bombing.

Instructions:

Photo Reconaissance: Fly to the photo area at the designated altitude (see Icon description). Every time you reach one end of the recon area you will see a subtitle. Fly two full circuits, up and down the length of the recon area. A final subtitle will inform you when you can go home. NOTE: YOU MUST LAND AT THE BASE FROM WHICH YOU TOOK OFF!

Artillery spotting: Fly to the patrol zone that points to the target. Stay inside the patrol zone for roughly 5-6 minutes at the required altitude. Subtitles will inform you of the progress.

Bombing: Targets are marked on the map. Observation balloons will fire two red flares when they see enemy aircraft approaching.

Apologies to all who turned up to fly Sunday but found no server. We suffered a nasty cyber attack on the server that simply destroyed everything we had. However, J2_SteveF again came through like a champ and got the server up by reinstalling all from scratch. Just a few finishing touches left to do over the next couple of days and we will be airworthy once again. We have also taken steps to tighten security on the box to prevent any future attacks.

At present, the plan is to run the Lens - June 1918 map this Sunday as we had planned last week.

Note: the stats database was also lost in the attack so everyone will have to re-register when the stats server is back up. We will make a post when the stats are back online and ready for registration. Thanks to all for your patience and understanding.

We had a few issues too so I made sure the user was something other than Administrator and a complex password, only allowing one account too. I assume windows server of some sort, if you check your logs you will see a couple of thousand attempts to log on every minute by scripts as they vary the password trying to hack in. Quite frightening to see.

OK! We are officially back on for this Sunday, March 12! Lens / Arras Sector - June 1918 Unfortunately, it looks like we won't have stats for this mission, but we aren't giving up and they are coming again very soon, most likely within a week or two. Still just a few bugs that need to be worked out. I hope everyone can make it Sunday, it should be an interesting battle!

Since we flew this game I have received a new rig and have not installed any mods. Do we need any for this weeks mission? Also, is their a place here where I can download the Syndicate skins? The archive that Jedder set up says I don't have permission to enter.